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Thanks. That's more real world than plenty of threads posted here and elsewhere recently. You can sense how desperate the gun owners are when suddenly they care about Britain, and are scrambling for numbers. As Piers Morgan correctly signed off to one of them last night, "You're no friend of mine."

I damn sure know how to define a bullet ridden body. That's a murder, a senseless murder, and in this case a batch of them, ones that would not have happened minus the 24/7/365 devastating and disgraceful realities of gun ownership.

Otherwise the numbers thrown out lately are more than laughable. Every country has different tendencies among crime and they are hardly defined or recorded the same way. You'd have to be a successful fool to make a one-on-one comparison. The United Kingdom criteria was changed more than a decade ago to include common assault as a violent crime. That's simple assault, with no injuries, the type of incident that United State numbers do not count among violent crime. The United Kingdom number more than doubles using that change alone. Specifically, it was a 118% bump. The United States requires "aggravated assault" as a violent crime. United Kingdom includes "sexual offences" in broad scope while the United States numbers include only "forcible rape." The United Kingdom figure includes 8% in an "other" category, non specified. The United States doesn't use anything like that, indicating there's more willingness in Britain to include borderline cases as violent crime, ones that don't align perfectly with a category. A full 15% of the United Kingdom number is "harassment," which once again doesn't show up in United States numbers. The way it's being presented by simpletons on right wing websites, and parroted everywhere, you would think that every category is directly parallel, and that every "violent" crime is what we would associate with the term in the United States, some type of dangerous physical act.

There's no doubt some of the disparity is real. The United States ranks low in car theft rate, while the United Kingdom is near the top. But it would hardly sound persuasive on Piers Morgan to rant about car theft when he can counter with bloody bullet ridden bodies. So the desperate right wingers happily lump those incidents as violent crime, and otherwise pretend all is swell. Hand me some more bullets, Martha, I think we're due for some rustling leaves tonight. From the southwest. I can feel it.

As always, situational influence. Don't take everything at face value. Not many of the cable hosts are in tune with it. I deal with it daily.

Soo is anyone going to propose a law where members of law enforcement can't own guns?

And Awsi- I don't think that those small adjustments would account for the massive difference in violent crime numbers. If you're going to nitpick at statistics when the difference is 300%, more power to you but it hardly advances the cause.

Gunowners only point to the UK because of how outspoken Piers Morgan is on the issue and he always brings up the UK.

"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."Henry Wheeler Shaw

Thanks. That's more real world than plenty of threads posted here and elsewhere recently. You can sense how desperate the gun owners are when suddenly they care about Britain, and are scrambling for numbers. As Piers Morgan correctly signed off to one of them last night, "You're no friend of mine."

I damn sure know how to define a bullet ridden body. That's a murder, a senseless murder, and in this case a batch of them, ones that would not have happened minus the 24/7/365 devastating and disgraceful realities of gun ownership.

Otherwise the numbers thrown out lately are more than laughable. Every country has different tendencies among crime and they are hardly defined or recorded the same way. You'd have to be a successful fool to make a one-on-one comparison. The United Kingdom criteria was changed more than a decade ago to include common assault as a violent crime. That's simple assault, with no injuries, the type of incident that United State numbers do not count among violent crime. The United Kingdom number more than doubles using that change alone. Specifically, it was a 118% bump. The United States requires "aggravated assault" as a violent crime. United Kingdom includes "sexual offences" in broad scope while the United States numbers include only "forcible rape." The United Kingdom figure includes 8% in an "other" category, non specified. The United States doesn't use anything like that, indicating there's more willingness in Britain to include borderline cases as violent crime, ones that don't align perfectly with a category. A full 15% of the United Kingdom number is "harassment," which once again doesn't show up in United States numbers. The way it's being presented by simpletons on right wing websites, and parroted everywhere, you would think that every category is directly parallel, and that every "violent" crime is what we would associate with the term in the United States, some type of dangerous physical act.

There's no doubt some of the disparity is real. The United States ranks low in car theft rate, while the United Kingdom is near the top. But it would hardly sound persuasive on Piers Morgan to rant about car theft when he can counter with bloody bullet ridden bodies. So the desperate right wingers happily lump those incidents as violent crime, and otherwise pretend all is swell. Hand me some more bullets, Martha, I think we're due for some rustling leaves tonight. From the southwest. I can feel it.

As always, situational influence. Don't take everything at face value. Not many of the cable hosts are in tune with it. I deal with it daily.

So, since I'm a gun owner, I'm disgraceful?!?

Tell you what - You don't want to own guns? Fine. Don't. But, I'll thank you to keep your grubby dick-beaters the hell off of my right to own one.

Wow...people that already dislike guns dont want anyone else to have them because someone bad did something to someone else across the country.

Where is the logic? Your right not to own a firearm is no more legitimate than my right to own a firearm. Nothing disgraceful about owning a weapon. Plenty of people die by getting their heads bashed in with a bat, but nobody seems to think Albert Pujols is a disgrace.

Why not try and tone down the angry rhetoric, and once, just one time, try engaging in a thoughtful debate. Both sides may learn something.

P.S.

p4e, did you ever figure out what Viagra was originally intended for? I notice you never replied to my post or PM

Thanks. That's more real world than plenty of threads posted here and elsewhere recently. You can sense how desperate the gun owners are when suddenly they care about Britain, and are scrambling for numbers. As Piers Morgan correctly signed off to one of them last night, "You're no friend of mine."

I damn sure know how to define a bullet ridden body. That's a murder, a senseless murder, and in this case a batch of them, ones that would not have happened minus the 24/7/365 devastating and disgraceful realities of gun ownership.

Otherwise the numbers thrown out lately are more than laughable. Every country has different tendencies among crime and they are hardly defined or recorded the same way. You'd have to be a successful fool to make a one-on-one comparison. The United Kingdom criteria was changed more than a decade ago to include common assault as a violent crime. That's simple assault, with no injuries, the type of incident that United State numbers do not count among violent crime. The United Kingdom number more than doubles using that change alone. Specifically, it was a 118% bump. The United States requires "aggravated assault" as a violent crime. United Kingdom includes "sexual offences" in broad scope while the United States numbers include only "forcible rape." The United Kingdom figure includes 8% in an "other" category, non specified. The United States doesn't use anything like that, indicating there's more willingness in Britain to include borderline cases as violent crime, ones that don't align perfectly with a category. A full 15% of the United Kingdom number is "harassment," which once again doesn't show up in United States numbers. The way it's being presented by simpletons on right wing websites, and parroted everywhere, you would think that every category is directly parallel, and that every "violent" crime is what we would associate with the term in the United States, some type of dangerous physical act.

There's no doubt some of the disparity is real. The United States ranks low in car theft rate, while the United Kingdom is near the top. But it would hardly sound persuasive on Piers Morgan to rant about car theft when he can counter with bloody bullet ridden bodies. So the desperate right wingers happily lump those incidents as violent crime, and otherwise pretend all is swell. Hand me some more bullets, Martha, I think we're due for some rustling leaves tonight. From the southwest. I can feel it.

As always, situational influence. Don't take everything at face value. Not many of the cable hosts are in tune with it. I deal with it daily.

How about we revisit The Harrison Act as the most prolific contributor to violence in this country since the Civil War. No other single act has cost the US so much money and lives than the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914. It single handedly created a bigger problem than the consumption of the drugs it was meant to protect people against.

Since you are adjusting your averages based on definition (of course the definition of average leads its self to interpretation) how about you subtract the suicide related deaths away from the gun totals, I mean roughly 50% are suicide related and let's face it people have been offing themselves long before there were firearms. Hell look at half the countries with heavily regulated fire arms and their suicide rate is still higher than the US. Cliffs be cliffs and that **** is pretty high or maybe we should fill in the grand cannon.

But enough about this suicided let's focus more on the Harrison Act and the intent of the act shall we? Well it would seem that near as can be estimated that another 40% of gun related deaths are due to drug trafficking. This little blurb about the topic is relatively poignant:

So while I agree that a bullet ridden body is a murder, not all bullet ridden bodies are created equal. The real task at hand is understanding the root cause of the violence, yeah the guns enable violence but realistically the 1% will do what they want regardless of any law or policy that is enacted, that's why they are called 1%'ers. I laugh at this notion that we live in some violent crime ridden community, I've been to Japan and Asia for months at a time and you can keep their society. There is so much emphasis placed on succeeding in life that they lose track of the reality of who they actually are.

The National objective is higher and more important than the individualism of the people! That sounds great on paper but that isn't how the Untied States was founded or formed and forcing people into that style of living is no different than monarchical rule. You can look at other countries all you want and adjust any stat you want to support any point for or against the argument but it still does absolutely zero to define the fundamental cause of the problem, which in every society usually means "fix it for me" instead of "educate myself as to why".

IMO, we don't have a "gun" problem - we have a "stupid *******" problem.

I hear this argument about that 'stupid *******' all the time. And the argument that it is people who kill not the gun. That is most certainly correct.
Should the government intervene for stupid people?
Absolutely.

Nobody is taking cars away because people get killed or hurt. Cars don't kill people, people do. But what we have is a whole bunch of laws trying to prevent or reduce the actions of stupid people. Hardly any accident is really a car's fault. Or equipment fault. Sure you hear about blown tires (mostly because the owner did not take care well enough) or brake failure (once again: take care of the car). But bottomline is that car accidents happen because of stupid people (driving to fast, not obeying traffic laws, driving drunk etc).
On the other hand to overcome car accidents or actions of stupid people there are laws on the book for car manufacturers which restrict the building and selling of cars: safety measures, post accident equipment (i.e. air bags), tire thread, brake performance etc.
There are also laws on the book for car owners: required driver license, eye tests etc. Before you can go and purchase a car a lot of things have to happen and have to be overcome to actually purchase and drive a car. All regulated by law.
Alcohol does not kill. People do. Yet, alcohol is regulated as well in order to prevent or reduce alcohol related deaths or injuries. You can not prevent every alcohol related death or accident but you can minimize the impact. That's what laws are for.

Guns on the other hand are almost unregulated. Every piece of crap can get a gun, assault weapon and whatever. There are people out there who carry guns they are probably not even allowed to drive a car because of health and mental issues or can't look straight without 3 whiskeys in the morning. People are not logical and have, more often than not, a lack of responsibility. To combat what you call 'stupid ******' you have to put laws in place to restrict these people from becoming at least legal gun owners. Sure anybody can get a gun illegally. Despite all the laws in effect people still drive cars illegally or drink illegally. But laws reduce these problems to a minimum. While it may not prevent a person from driving a car illegally it is most definite a deterrent.

So here is that tough bitch carrying a gun to her daughters soccer game. How often do you hear about soccer moms and soccer dads freaking out because their little **** doesn't get it his or her way. How do I know that this gun toting wanna-be female Rambo is not some nut case who freaks out and shoots a ref or another coach. We don't because the gun industry is almost unregulated.

We don't know if laws would have prevented that incident. It may not. But that should not be a reason not to put in place some regulation.

I posted this story because it is irony at its best. Here is that McDonalds-fed, gun-toting momma becoming the symbol of the 2nd Amendment. A hero to all gun lovers. A hero to the industry. Because she feels so much safer and because she can carry that gun around. Though she wasn't killed at a soccer game or in a grocery store but at home. And not by an intruder but by her own husband who is probably, according to you, a 'stupid ******'. The 2nd amendment she was hailing so much failed her. It cost her life.

It is not about not allowing or prohibiting guns. It is not about eliminating gun related deaths. It is about reducing the possibility of gun related incidents. Just like any other industry where the actions of 'stupid *******' can cause harm and death regulations have to be put in place.

And about the three kids: I feel sorry for them. But they probably will get over it. Most humans do. But in an effort to keep government out of the 2nd amendment those three kids probably will enter a government funded and sponsored mental health program to cope with their loss. Yeah, good job mom and dad. Two gun toting parents, all hail the 2nd amendment, just left behind three kids without parents entering most likely a program which is run by the very same government you were fighting to get involved in the first place. Two thumbs up.
The kids will miss their parents, no doubts. And as I said I feel sorry for them but they will move on with their lives and the memories of their parents will one day be a distant memory. Maybe they learn their lesson and become gun-regulation advocates one day. Who knows.

I feel sorry for the dog. I consider pets a part of the family not just an animal you can toss away. While people can talk to the kids and they can begin their mental healing the dog, unless he finds a loving home, will be put in a shelter and if nobody wants him will be euthanized in a few days. The poor thing probably goes from a home to a shelter to death and nobody can explain to the pet why.